


how was I supposed to know?

by waywardflower



Series: give me a sign [1]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode 13: Haruhi in Wonderland!, Found Family, Gen, Light Angst, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, brOT7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29532624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardflower/pseuds/waywardflower
Summary: There are so many oddities of her life that she’s simply stopped questioning, because nobody else has ever understood. But now she wonders if they haven’t been waiting for her to find them all along. Waiting for her to understand that she is understood....Haruhi has never seen in color before. Then she wakes from one absurd dream into another, and finds that a vibrant, loving world is waiting for her.Or: "How Haruhi Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Host Club"(written for ouran high school host club fanwork week day 1: soulmates AND found family)
Relationships: Fujioka Haruhi & Fujioka Kotoko, Fujioka Haruhi & Ootori Kyouya, Fujioka Haruhi & Suoh Tamaki, Fujioka Haruhi & The Ouran High School Host Club
Series: give me a sign [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169654
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	how was I supposed to know?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to the first installment of my soulmates of a different flavor au!!
> 
> in this AU, each person has a different soulmate trope (called a soulsign) that binds them to their soulmates, and their soulmate's soulsign also binds them. so a pair of soulmates has two different soulmate tropes binding them together (eg: first words AND red string). and a brot7 of soulmates has seven soulsigns connecting each individual to each individual.
> 
> AKA: i didn't feel like choosing one specific soulmate au so i spread each soulmate au out between the different characters. also because soulsigns are like love languages. haruhi's is seeing colors when she falls in (platonic in this case) love!
> 
> hopefully the rest of the signs will be made clear in this fic/throughout the rest of the series, but there is also a little cheatsheet in the end notes. :)
> 
> This first fic was posted for ouran high school host club fanwork week day 1: soulmates AND found family, bc i love a good brot7.

“Haruhi?”

Haruhi wakes up too soon. Her face is wet––she turns away from where the others stand waiting, scrubs her eyes with the back of her hand.

Mom had been so sorry. Mom had said-

Haruhi had woken up too soon. If only Tamaki had let her sleep just a few minutes longer. She could have-

“This is unusual, huh? You dozing off…” 

She startles. Those words are shockingly familiar, she looks up at Tamaki, who leans over her-

What is he _wearing?_

Blinking the garishness out of her eyes, Haruhi looks quickly to the rest of Music Room 3, which happens to be equally blinding. What on earth?

“It’s almost time for our guests to arrive,” interrupts Kyoya. “Hurry and get ready.”

Get ready. Right. Today is a cosplay day, which must explain the sheer ridiculosity of the things everyone is wearing. Not that Kyoya doesn’t look good in his dress, or the twins in their cat ears, or Mori in his armor, and Hani with his watch, and Tamaki with his… whatever that is.

“Go get changed.” Hikaru shoves her costume into her hands. 

She stumbles into the changing room with her usual grace and sighs. The dream lingers, a melancholy weight in her chest, but she finds herself quickly distracted by the dress in her hands.

Her costume is… _more_ than usual. She can’t quite put her finger on it, really, but something about the frilled, poofy dress is so _much._ It’s neither the large bow nor the oversized collar nor the extravagant lace bursting around every seam––it’s not even the cutesy shape of it. Something about it is so much more surreal than when she’d first seen the twins’ concept sketches.

She just can’t figure it out. Still, she pulls it over her head, smooths down the frills, and walks out with five minutes to spare. Unlike the boys, she’s not much of a diva when it comes to changing, which means everything moves much faster for her.

As she walks out, she’s struck again by how _much_ it all is today. Sure, the cosplays have been increasingly exuberant, but this is altogether ludicrous. 

Mori’s cape has such ridiculous depth for a garment so simple. Something about Hani’s bunny ears is even sweeter, fluffier, more vivid than usual. Even Usa-chan’s gotten the makeover, somehow. The twins’ hair clashes boldly against the stripes of their own costume––what had they even done to their hair, and why? She hopes it’s not permanent. 

Kyoya’s dress is already opulent, but the richness of his cape and gown seems beyond reasonable. She can’t believe he’d let Tamaki go so far for this cosplay––and then there’s Tamaki, who still seems quite agitated, leaning over her and asking _her_ if she’s alright, saying she’s the one looking off today, when he’s wearing-

“What are you _wearing?”_ Haruhi blurts.

Tamaki straightens, brows furrowing. “I’m the Mad Hatter, of course. You’ve seen me in this before, Haruhi. When we all tried them on, don’t you remember?”

“There’s no way. That has to be a different coat.”

The twins are whispering back and forth behind Tamaki, but she can’t be bothered to look, not when this is in front of her. The coat is all-encompassing.

In an act far removed from her usual consideration for such things as personal space, she reaches out for the flamboyant fabric. It bunches up tangibly in her fist. It’s real, this jacket, and so is Tamaki-senpai when she looks up. He’s gaping at her and blushing––and somehow, the shock of vividness flaming in his cheeks is the same as the jacket he’s currently wearing. Her mouth falls open. How is he doing that?

“It’s so _much,_ ” she says, full of wonder. “What _is_ this?”

“That, Haruhi, is the color red.” There’s a smile in Kyoya’s voice, and she’s immediately suspicious.

“Red? That couldn’t possibly be red! It’s so… bold, nobody ever said it was so…” She shakes her head. “And besides, that’s a color. You know I haven’t ever been able to see…”

Gloved hands pry her fingers away from the jacket as Haruhi trails off mid-thought. Tamaki’s eyes are wide, but his smile is hopeful. She backs away.

There’s something she’s missing, she’s sure of it. The fond and patient way that they look at her tells her so. The cheerful, teasing flutter of her ever-present background music tells her so. The sweetness sitting thick in her empty mouth tells her so.

Haruhi bites her lip. There’s no way.

“We have guests,” says Mori, in his deep, soothing voice. Keeping them grounded, Mori-senpai, as always––and his cape seems to grow a little richer. She blinks again. It must be a trick of the light. It must be.

They seem hesitant to leave her. Even Kyoya seems reluctant to send her away to her appointments, and that is really alarming. But she waves them away. She needs to think, anyway. Why would she be seeing color? Why now? And why is it so _much?_

Somehow Haruhi makes it through all her appointments. She doesn’t know what to think of the fact that the girls’ dresses don’t look any different from her first day here. The words fall out of her mouth, flowing just as naturally as ever, but she is miles away from Music Room 3. She feels the other hosts checking on her, but doesn’t look at any of them for fear of getting transfixed.

When she’s finally seen her last guest off, she slumps against the cushions, and thinks.

There has been a growing strangeness with her vision lately. Things have been looking more… bright, maybe. Or rich? Or striking. Little by little, it had been so gradual, it was just today that everything had become so intense and overwhelming _._

She had thought it was just the Host Club, their obsession with frivolous exquisite beauties, but this is different. Unusual…

Unusual? _Oh._

Haruhi fumbles, pulls down the little band she keeps securely around her wrist. The words are right there––Tamaki’s words. _This is unusual, huh? You dozing off…_

Words on her wrist. Suddenly seeing colors she’s never been able to before.

Tamaki-senpai… is her soulmate? His soulsign is words. Hers is color.

Of course. That makes so much sense. She facepalms. How on earth could she have forgotten?

“Figured it out yet?”

Kyoya puts aside his laptop, giving her a knowing look from across the table. How long has he been there? 

Oh, gosh. How long has he known?

He smirks, presumably at the welling horror on her face. Kyoya-senpai has probably known this entire time, the bastard. Of course he has. He’s been practically babysitting her for the past hour, probably waiting for her to realize just so he could send her this smug expression. 

But no, there’s a kindness under it, as always. He hadn’t wanted to send her off to appointments. He was concerned for her, after all. And the richness of his dress seems to deepen, for a moment, stunning her even more.

“What- what color is that?” she chokes out.

He freezes, suddenly disarmed.

“That’s purple, Haru-chan!” Honey-senpai bounces over. His bunny ears are eye-catching, and it’s not just the adorable way they flop with each step. She tastes phantom sugar.

“Purple. And…” She points at his brightening ears, feeling fragile. “That?”

“Pink,” says a deep voice. The background music is building, and crashes beautifully when she looks into Mori-senpai’s eyes. Whatever color his cape is, it soothes her.

“That’s indigo,” Kaoru offers, pointing to where her eyes have settled. He sounds a little strained, a little hopeful, and her chest is tight with it, heart beating anxious, pleading against her ribcage––oh, their hair is brilliant.

There’s a tug at her finger, and she follows the pull to see Hikaru leaning on her couch. “Well, some people might call that blue. But indigo is definitely the right word.”

He’s feigning indifference, and her own skirt flares with it.

“What color is your hair?”

The twins glance at each other. “Our hair is orange, though people call us redheads.”

“And this?” She points to her dress.

“That’s blue. Real blue,” Hikaru affirms, and _real blue_ glows soft.

 _Oh._ She laughs. “Is that why you’re so defensive over blue, then?”

“What?”

“I… I just realized, is all."

“Haruhi…” Tamaki calls. He looks around at the others, all coiled with anticipation. He turns to her with a smile and asks like he already knows the answer: “Are we your soulmates?”

Each of them with their own color. She has to admit, the way it all happened smacks of fate––her ankle has had the number negative eight million stamped on it for years. She’d bet anything that’s Kyoya’s soul sign. And that red string that sometimes flickers into view, something tells her that’s Hikaru. 

What are the other signs? There must be other signs, for Mori, Hani, Kaoru. She wonders…

There are so many oddities of her life that she’s simply stopped questioning, because nobody else has ever understood. But now she wonders if they haven’t been waiting for her to find them all along. Waiting for her to understand that she _is_ understood.

“I think you are,” she says slowly. “I think- I think you’re red, and Kyoya-senpai is purple. Hani-senpai, Mori-senpai, you guys are pink and indigo. Kaoru, you’re orange, and Hikaru, you’re blue.”

Haruhi looks up, surprised at how nervous she feels.

“When I found out I saw you for the first time. Your hair, your eyes… I had never seen brown before,” says Tamaki, without prompting. His eyes are so gentle on her face, his voice so kind. “It’s beautiful.”

A collective murmur of assent. The music has changed, to something less mischievous and more sweet in its joy. Seven soulmates. Something settles in her chest.

“It’s making a little more sense, now, huh Haru-chan?”

“Normal people don’t taste sweetness when they’re not eating, do they?”

Honey-senpai laughs. “No. Or hear background music. Or see red strings. Or feel someone else’s feelings.”

After all this time, there’s been a perfectly normal explanation. Except that it’s not normal at all, because she has _six_ _soulmates._

“You guys are too much,” she sighs.

“I think we’re all just enough,” says Hani cheerfully. Mori grunts agreement.

Haruhi looks at them warily. She hates to doubt her soulmates, but despite all today’s fantasticality she remains herself.

“Seven soulmates. It’s just… surreal.”

“Like a dream, huh?” Tamaki winks at her.

And it hits her.

Mom’s tears. The cut-off hug. Tamaki’s words, pulling her out of the dream, waking her up––too soon––she’d thought, with eyes still wet.

 _I made it so hard for you,_ Mom had said. She had cried behind her mask.

And given more time, Haruhi would have argued _no,_ because Haruhi is unerringly loyal to the mother she loves so much. But it _had_ been hard. It had been lonely. For so long, there was nobody to understand.

Maybe Tamaki hadn’t woken her up too soon. Maybe it had been right on time, so she could be here with the Host Club as they played out the rest of their youth together. Just like Mom had wanted. 

_Enjoy your dream-like life now to make up for it._

Maybe a family of soulmates isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s something she can get used to. Maybe it’s something she can grow to understand.

“A dream-like student life, huh?” she muses. Haruhi smiles ruefully, shrugging at her beloved friends. “I have to admit, around here, there’s not much difference whether I’m awake or I’m asleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading and thank you eurydicees for organizing this!! im so excited :D
> 
> if you read this without reading the cheatsheet pls tell me how i did with making it clear! were you confused? did it make sense? did you figure out who was who? lmk pls <3
> 
> (note: when i say fall in love i mean that platonically and romantically)  
> soulsigns for the hosts:
> 
> haruhi - when she's fallen in love she sees their color  
> kaoru - feels the sensation of his soulmates' emotions when they're feeling strongly  
> hikaru - red string of fate babeyyy  
> hani - tastes sweetness when his soulmates are happy  
> mori - hears the background music of his soulmate's lives  
> tamaki - the words that make him fall in love with them are written on his wrist  
> kyoya - net value at the time that he meets them printed on his ankle
> 
> read more about this au or about my undying love for ouran on my tumblr!


End file.
